THE PRESENT INVENTION relates to a safety arrangement, and more particularly relates to a safety arrangement in a motor vehicle, such as a motor car.
When a motor vehicle is involved in a frontal impact, there is a risk that an occupant of the front seat of the motor vehicle may suffer injury to the feet, legs or knees.
For example, injuries can occur in the foot or ankle due to a short, rapid acceleration of the floor in the foot well. In a typical accident situation, the floor may accelerate upwardly and inwardly with an instantaneous acceleration which may be as high as 1,000 g. Since the feet and legs of an occupant of a motor vehicle may well be resting on the floor, and will have inertia, it is to be appreciated that this high acceleration of the floor may cause substantial injuries to the feet and/or lower legs of the occupants of the vehicle. Similar injuries may also arise if the floor of the foot well is penetrated by, for example, part of the suspension of the vehicle, or some other component which is driven rearwardly into the foot well as a consequence of the accident. Sometimes fractures of the lower leg are experienced as a consequence of the leg being trapped under the fascia, and the situation may be made worse if the floor or fascia is penetrated by components driven rearwardly during the accident.
Further injuries can be caused to the knees of the occupant and, additionally, injuries can be caused by the feet or legs of the occupant impacting with the pedals present in the motor vehicle.
Various proposals have been made previously in attempts to overcome these problems. For example, DE-A-4,335,511 discloses a complex arrangement in which the pedals are retracted to a position in which they are unlikely to injure the occupant of the vehicle in the event that an accident should arise. Various types of padding have also been proposed to provide protection for the knees of an occupant of a vehicle, the padding comprising an air-bag, a resilient element or even a resilient element mounted on a movable support. Reference may be made to DE-A-2,109,637, DE-A-4, 243, 791 and DE-A-4, 301, 933.